


in solitudine

by localfreak



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Aziraphale's Bookshop (Good Omens), Gen, Historical References, Lonely Aziraphale (Good Omens), Oscar Wilde Trials, References to Oscar Wilde, Sad Aziraphale (Good Omens), Tite Street, bookseller aziraphale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:28:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23933077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/localfreak/pseuds/localfreak
Summary: Wednesday, April 24th, 1895. Aziraphale has an unhappy task to do - provided heaven doesn't interrupt him.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 12





	in solitudine

Wednesday, April 24th, 1895. Soho, London. 

Aziraphale was dithering. It was something he was particularly good at, despite his best intentions. His hands moved seemingly beyond his control, fiddling with the buttons on his waistcoat, rubbing at the soft fabric under his thumbs, adjusting his collar, his cuffs…catching sight of himself in the reflection of one of his glass-fronted cabinets and making a moue of distaste.  
He didn’t want to go. 

He closed his eyes on his own reflection and swallowed once, painfully. 

“Come now,” he told himself. “It is hardly the most distasteful thing you’ve ever had to do.” This was true, standing wet and cold in sodden fields, burying rotting limbs of the dead, mopping up sick beds- these were all things that the millennia had made him well accustomed to.  
But this still felt very different. Perhaps because there was no way to justify it. 

It wasn’t purely selfish though, was it? He wasn’t just being acquisitive and greedy, wanting to hold something of his friend close to him, was he? He’d give them back of course, to their rightful owner if he could - . No, he shook himself, _when_ he could. 

And he was running late. Straightening, Aziraphale made his was firmly to the door of the shop and stepped out. On the surface, if you were a stranger to the road, you might feel it was a normal day on a normal street in London. People pushed each other, urchins with rags around their feet ran along the gutters, a carriage ploughed its way through up the road and so on. But Aziraphale was an angel, and a local. Mary, the flower-seller from the doorway opposite, turned away and didn’t offer him a buttonhole, a nursery maid who might normally have returned his polite smile pulled the perambulator close to her and hurried past, and not a cab would stop for him. He knew better than to try. 

Heaving a sigh, he trotted off on his way. It was nearly an hour’s walk from his shop to Chelsea and he didn’t expect he’d have any better luck picking up a cab anywhere else if those that knew him turned their backs already. It was most frustrating. If it had been a normal errand, he might have been tempted to perform a miracle to make one stop for him but he didn’t want to draw anyone’s attention to his errand- in _caeli_ or in _terra_ , as it were. 

Rather than think too closely of the purpose of his errand, per say, he entertained himself as he normally would by watching the people around him. It was slightly harder than usual as for the most part when people caught his eye in previous years- months even- they would return his smile politely, whereas now he did his best not to meet anyone’s eye- an action he didn’t much care for. But still, there were always pockets of happiness to see, the way that shops changed over for new uses, the laughter of friends meeting at a café, the shouts of the stall-holders shouting their wares- all of it never ceased to make him feel some buoyant happiness in humanity. They really were mostly good, deep down. 

He was less than a street away when he sensed another ethereal presence at his shoulder.

“Oh!” he turned, “Gabriel what a- surprise.”

“Am I interrupting something?” Gabriel smiled broadly.

“Well actually-“ Aziraphale caught himself, “No, nothing at all that can wait. Was just – ah- heading to the – Children’s hospital yes, some very devout parents…” 

“Oh good, nothing that can’t wait then,” Gabriel said, “Only you need to pop back up with me- got Uriel’s been on at me to get the paperwork sorted from the last lot of reports- bit of a backlog and I thought you’d appreciate it- been too long since you’ve had a chance to nip up and stretch your wings, right?”

“Oh- ah- yes, em. Ah. Right you are Gabriel.” Aziraphale piffled a bit more, before defeatedly giving up.

Perhaps, if he could get through whatever paperwork Gabriel wanted from him quickly enough, he thought desperately, as Gabriel walked him into a spare office covered in scrolls.

Gabriel slapped him on the shoulder, “Like I said, bit of a backlog, knew you’d understand,” he said quickly with an air known by all subordinates everywhere (caeli et terra, even) known as ‘the manager passing the buck’. 

“Right. Um. Thank you.” Aziraphale offered weakly to the empty room. 

Time moves differently in heaven, but not so differently of course that Aziraphale didn’t know the moment the bells of London struck for evening. He closed his eyes momentarily from the task before him and allowed a few tears to roll down his cheeks. Too late. Oh, if only he’d had a few more minutes, if only he could have sent a message to Crowley to go in his stead to Tite Street. But, of course, he hadn’t seen Crowley since that day in St James’ Park. Decades ago now.

And that hurt all the more: here he was, stuck in an empty office in a lonely corner of heaven and now he’d lost everything- lost Crowley’s friendship and now Oscar’s books. And so, quietly, he began to weep in earnest.

Nobody came. He was quite, quite alone.

_On earth as it is in heaven_

**Author's Note:**

> Basically I couldn't stop thinking about the fact that if Aziraphale had been able to he would - surely- have bought Wilde's books, which were sold in lots for a pittance on the street outside 'the house beautiful' in Tite Street whilst Wilde was on trial. 
> 
> Something - therefore- must have stopped him (of course the minute he gets back to Earth he will begin his hunt to acquire any that can be found and look after them with all the love an attention they deserve).


End file.
